Invent to Control
by Viviane Renard
Summary: Stark faithfully conducted his life by two personal codes: build the best machines, and have absolute control over them. Civil War 'what if' universe, eventual Tony/Peter Iron Man/Spider-Man slash
1. Chapter 1

This is a 'what if' fic set in the Marvel Civil War universe, and will eventually be slash between Tony/Peter (Iron Man/Spider-Man). I always thought they had such great chemistry in the Civil War comics. The 'what if' is how would the Civil War be impacted if Tony had a second override and kept Spider-Man from switching sides. I'm using the Marvel Civil War comics _Civil War_ (my baby!), _The Amazing Spider-Man Civil War_, and _Peter Parker, Spider-Man Civil War_ as direct references and Wikipedia for all other information.

In case you aren't familiar with the Civil War comics (as I was when I read my first Civil War fic), here's a brief summary up to where my fic starts:

Four upstart superheroes fight crime for a television series and face off some dangerous supercriminals just for the ratings—and in the process get themselves and 600 civilians blown up. A Stamford Elementary School with the children inside gets destroyed also, which became the rallying cry of civilians that superheroes should unmask and be personally responsible for their actions. This Superhero Registration Act would make superheroes paid government employees who would have to be screened before allowed to fight crime. After talking to the president and getting verbally abused by a grieving mother whose child had been killed, Tony Stark decides to become the main champion of the Superhero Registration Act. While Stark is backed by the public, Captain America and those opposed to the act form an anti-registration group and continue to fight crime masked. Stark convinces Peter, a good friend and protégé who lives with MJ and Aunt May in the Avengers Tower/Stark Tower, to unmask in public to encourage other superheroes. After all, Spider-Man more than anyone else has desperately tried to keep his identity secret. Although reluctant, Peter unmasks on public television and becomes a poster boy for registration. A huge face-off between Iron Man and Captain America's two groups leads to the accidental death of Goliath (Bill Foster) at the hands of the out-of-control cyborg Thor created by the Hank Pym, Reed Richards and Tony Stark. While some of Captain America's troops join Iron Man in fear of what could happen to them, most of the once neutral superheroes join Captain America to protest Iron Man's brutal methods. Spider-Man too rethinks his decision and decides to run away with MJ and Aunt May to join the rebels. Iron Man stops Peter before he can leave, and a fight ensues. Peter looks down for the count, having Stark's Iron Spider armor freeze up on him at Stark's secret code (passcode omega omega epsilon nine), but then Spider-Man overrides his suit with his own code (passcode surprise).

And now for what happens next…

PS, disclaimer: I do not own anything affiliated with Marvel comics.

**Invent to Control**

Chapter One

Stark learned at an early age that the world was cold. To shield himself from the elements, man made clothes and then invented armor. Stark had been born naïve and naked like everyone else, but his sharp analytical mind separated him from the masses. His mind made him understand the need for armor at an age when other children still chafed at the feel of silk socks—his mind made him _better_ than _all_ of them. He had discovered this epiphany at the bottom of a very deep bourbon glass many years ago, during what he curtly labeled his 'coulda been better years.' He had had many epiphanies during those regrettably unforgettable years, as he drowned pathetically in liquid fire, seeking both oblivion and answers in the same gulping breath.

As a child, his parents thought raising him—'grooming' they called it—meant tossing him like a limp ragdoll between pretentious private tutors, unattached nannies and playground bullies. Out of these three, young Stark embraced most passionately the playground and its childish brutality. While his nanny sat on a bench reading a trashy romance novel, Stark discovered a world away from adults, one he could finally control. His extraordinary intelligence and eerie maturity, which unnerved adults and isolated Stark, finally gave him a sense of power. While mothers viewed the slides and sandboxes from a distance with approving smiles and quiet exclamations of "look how well they're getting along," young Stark systematically dissected the breathing, tumultuous jungle that made up his then small world. He observed and catalogued and maneuvered and dominated the playground with sophisticated savagery.

He learned that there were only two laws that gave any semblance of order to the sandbox chaos: the boy with the biggest shovel had control, and secondly, that when you had control, _you kept it at all cost_.

You built the tools that defined you, thus molding your abstract self into a material form. However, if you didn't have the power to retain possession of those tools, what was stopping the next big brute from bringing you back down to ground zero? It took ingenuity to build a machine, but it only took muscle to steal it. Granted, muscle could not fix a machine once broken, but hooligans never bothered trying to fix their stolen instruments of precision. Like locust, they would instead mob and devour the next pushover intellect.

Young Stark felt nothing but disdain for the unthinking bully. To rule absolutely, a mind had to control the muscle and tools. You could have the best sand-making tools, the bucket and shovel and sniveling sidekick, but without the skill—the hell with the rest of it. You were still going to have only a lump of sand and failure in the end.

Stark had witnessed playground dictatorships topple firsthand—hell, he had been the invisible hand moving the mob—and resolved to never be one of those children with the skinned knees and flayed hearts.

Hence, the two personal codes he faithfully conducted his life by: build the best machines, and have absolute control over them.

It was simple and brutal, and more than his magnetic chest plate, it kept his heart beating and his head above water.

Take his present predicament.

"You have _no right _to toy with people's lives in your power play, Iron Man. I hope you know how to subtract by three, because count me and my family out!" Spider-Man snapped out as he rose from the ground in one fluid motion, regaining control of the Iron Spider suit with his patched programming. In the general present and immediate future, Iron Man seemed in a bind. With cyborg Thor's malfunction (an admittedly unethical venture in itself) causing the death of Goliath, Spider-Man's turning only hinted at the changing winds of the wavering superhero community. Feeling his command slip between his metal fingers as desertion increased and villains replaced friends in his ranks, Stark clenched his fist more tightly around his remaining tools. Mercy belonged to times of prosperity.

Just as Iron Man felt no guilt layering an override into Spider-Man's suit, he felt no surprise at Parker's counter program, proving once again his intuitive intelligence and usefulness to Stark's cause. Unfortunately for Parker, Stark never left a variable unaccounted for.

Stark's mask hid his smile as Spider-Man charged full throttle towards him in _his_ personally designed suit, a work of hand-crafted genius if he did say so himself, and whose lethality he was very, very familiar with. What Spider-Man didn't know was that Stark's iron rules once again trumped all, and Spidey's elation of overriding Stark's override was an empty victory.

Control—he had control of his emotions, of his surroundings, of the unwitting Spider-Man.

Calmly, he said to the Iron Spider suit barreling towards him, "Passcode fucked."

Instantly the contortionist's liquid movements froze stiff, his momentum bringing him to a skidding halt in front of Stark's ironclad feet. Iron Man looked down impassively, objectively studying the wreck of his protégé, confidant and friend. And realized he wasn't really that impassive, that he was angry and disappointed and insulted and goddammit—even _hurt_—that Spider-Man's actions forced this to happen.

"And I thought I was a paranoid double-checker with my front door. How many nights did that fear of an override overriding your override keep you up, Tin Man?" That was pure Peter, treating a crisis flippantly. All that anger surged down into his foot, like lightning seeking ground, and he impulsively planted it on the small of Spider-Man's back. The force expelled an audible amount of air from the slender young man.

Stark leaned down to Spider-Man, grounding that foot in _good_, and whispered into his ear, "Peter, do not test my nonexistent patience right now."

"So—you gonna," Spiderman wheezed out, his gasping heaves jostling but not dislodging Stark's heavy iron boot, "gonna ship me out to—to your negative zone—detention with love and—a fond farewell?"

"Hardly," Stark snorted, his suit's microphone distorting the noise into a harsh metallic rasp. "As far as the public is concerned, you are still an officially registered, law-abiding superhero."

"Somehow, I don't think that—I'm going to be let off—with a slap to the wrist. But by all means, don't let my—my disbelief convince you otherwise."

Stark hauled up Spider-Man's immobilized form by the scruff of his neck, like an angry lion with a disobedient cub. He even gave him a good shake just for the hell of it. "Good guess, you didn't even need to use your 50-50. I am running you through rehabilitation once we get you a new Stark Tower suite—you've certainly trashed this one."

"As a professional alcoholic, shouldn't that be my line to you?"

Set on an impenetrable faceplate, Stark's empty yellow eyes glowed impassively at Spider-Man. The stiff straightness and stillness of his body suggested a restrained violence. "How can you joke at a time like this?"

The beaten super hero gave him one of his most charming, teeth-baring grins ever. It was an unsettling sight. The lower half of the mask had torn during his ungainly tumble, revealing thin lips quirked to show teeth. The two large, blank golden eyes of Peter's suit reflected Iron Man's distorted figure. Those thin, expressive lips began moving, and Stark had to draw himself away from the image to focus on the words: "I need something to occupy my time, because I can't move my hands to throttle your neck."

Despite having control of Spider-Man's suit, a shiver crawled up his spine at the wrongness of Peter's murderous tone. The brilliant red and gold suit revealed nothing of its owner's misgivings. _Come on, Tony, get a hold of yourself: who's in the working suit?_ he thought to himself. Nonchalantly, or rather hopefully with all the appearance of nonchalance, he said to Spider-Man, "Whatever you say, Webhead. You're going to thank me for this in the long run."

Still contorted in his mid-run pose, Spider-Man was the most awkward luggage Stark ever had the displeasure of lugging around in his Iron Man armor. Not in the mood for any questions or looks from servants, superheroes or SHIELD agents, Iron Man opted to fly Spider-Man up several stories of the Stark Tower rather than take the elevator. Spider-Man's unyielding metal and synthetic fabric body pressed harshly into his chest as he powered up the repulsor rays for takeoff. Air whistled in his ears as they skimmed past windows of the towering metal and glass skyscraper known as Stark Tower. For a long time, it had been known as the Avengers Tower, but those glory days died with six hundred civilians and four irresponsible superheroes. With the Civil War tearing the superhero community to tatters, Stark had buried any hope of the Avengers reassembling and now called the tower by its old name.

Stark Tower: the name felt barren now, like the metal skeleton of a structure without walls to protect it from rain or wind.

Despite the screaming airstream and leftover adrenaline pounding in his ears, the armor's highly effective hearing system picked up Spider-Man's muttered, "Oh, you just wait until I show you my _appreciation_, boss."

The way Spider-Man said it, Stark didn't think he was going to get a kiss on the cheek.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two, yay! Please tell me if you spot any mistakes or have suggestions (writing style, logic of plot, characterization, etc). While I try to remain canon up until where this story starts, I'm making Jarvis an AI like in the movie "Iron Man." Because he's sexier as a computer than an old man.

**Invent to Control**

Chapter Two

"Oh my god, what _happened_ to him?!" Mary-Jane exclaimed. Her flaming red hair frizzed out from the force of her head whipping back and forth to take in both Stark's rapid movement and Peter's unconscious form. Peter was a collage of tattered fabric and bruises, his passed out form slumped on the bed in a parody of sleep.

Stark continued ransacking Peter and Mary-Jane's shared bedroom, grabbing clothes and other necessities. Basically, he packed all of Peter's belongings that were relatively harmless when taken in the light of 'how could this be used to kill Tony?' He spied a stack of books on the desk and recognized them as the ones Peter had been complaining about wanting to read, but never having enough time to. Well, that was about to change. He shoved them into the quickly filling duffle bag.

Mary-Jane's accusing finger dug into his still-armored chest and broke his contemplation. "Anthony Edward Stark, you are going to tell me what happened to my husband, _now_." Here he was, 6'6" and 425 pounds in full body combat armor, getting bullied by 5'8" and 120 pounds of pure fire-spit. In a mid-riff baring green tank top and tight jeans pressed flush against him.

In that moment Stark felt the most fear and respect for a woman he had ever felt (excluding Pepper, who didn't count because he had learned his lesson from his previous secretary's sexual-harassment suit), and wondered if this fire was what got Peter riled up at night and why he married her. Because hot damn—as if his overheating high-tech equipment didn't raise his body temperature enough!

"There was a fight," Stark muttered, avoiding her penetrating green gaze and feeling like a naughty schoolboy caught in the act the entire time.

Her burgundy lipsticked lips thinned into a grimace, and she planted her fists firmly on her wide to-die-for hips. Tony wanted to put his own paws on those inviting handles and squeeze—but he needed to stop being distracted, she was a tiger and any overtly false move would get him verbally slaughtered. "Don't be an idiot who states the obvious," Mary-Jane retorted sharply, "Now tell me who and if it's serious."

Quick thinking had the inventor grasping at straws. "Some anti-registration 'heroes' roughed him up a bit before I could step in."

Mary-Jane surveyed the disheveled room before returning her cool, unimpressed gaze to Stark. "That doesn't explain the rearranging of our room, Mr. Stark."

"Er, sorry, probably should have explained that first," he said to stall for time. "You see, one of the rogues was—was a mutant with mild radioactive abilities. He got a solid hit on Peter, so we have to keep him quarantined to learn the extent of his damage and the potential for fallout."

Mary-Jane's proud face, everything from her pursed lips to disbelieving eyebrows, crumbled into an acute expression of worry; Stark knew he had finally gained control of the situation. She started towards Peter's undignified, sprawled form but never made it. Stark's outstretched arm blocked her, and he said gravely, "I'm sorry, Mary-Jane, but I can't risk you being contaminated."

"This is _Peter_ we're talking about! My health comes second!" she argued, pushing at the unmovable gold and red appendage. Her eyes never left Peter, as if blinking would dissolve him.

"Not in Peter's mind. He would never forgive me if something happened to you when I could have prevented it."

He could see the conflicting emotions warring in her jeweled eyes—the love and worry and pride—until the internal fight died down and left them colored a dull green of resignation. She deflated and threatened tiredly, "You better treat him the best you can, or I don't care what Stark protocol calls for, I'm charging in there and taking him to a real hospital."

"I promise, I'll treat him with more love than my mother."

Who had been distant with him and vice versa for all of his childhood, but that was beyond the point. The point was that he meant what he said, he truly did. Stark was jaded, not heartless for chrissake.

XXXXX

The room was aesthetically simple to the point of beautifully bland, small enough to feel cozy but large enough contain everything with plenty of leftover walking space. Various soothing oil paintings of landscapes (all original masterpieces picked out by Jarvis because even an AI had better art taste than Stark) hung strategically on golden cream-colored walls. Stark's iron boots crushed the plush burgundy carpet, sinking down maybe half an inch into what he knew from personal experience was barefoot heaven. The bulletproof glass overlooked the sprawling city, its high perspective erasing the dirty, desperate streets and leaving a scenic view of skyscrapers and success. If not the best choice, the room would certainly serve its purpose; although he was would have to discreetly replace the glass with something a little…sturdier. Also, reinforce the doors, amp up the surveillance equipment, install a heat-detection system and seal all the vents and possible escape routes. Nothing too drastic, just a simple superhero-proofing overhaul. Considering good old Project Forty-Two, his and Reed's jointly built anti-hero detention area, he had plenty of experience in the department.

This room was one of the many unoccupied rooms on the highest level of Stark Tower, which Stark reserved for himself. The layout comprised of his personal bedroom, the 'guest rooms' (such as the one now deemed unceremoniously Peter's) where he entertained his ever-revolving circle of female companionships, a games and bar room, a personal surveillance room, and one of his many cherished labs. He'd been trying to add an in-ground pool for weeks now, chicks in bikinis always a fun pastime, but the damn contractor kept jabbering on and on about the consequences of leakage, something trite like potentially washing away the entire floor underneath.

But that was a more easily solved dilemma (fire the man and hire someone willing) and not his main focus today.

He figured, if he was putting Peter into one of his private guest rooms, the burgundy-gold one was the tamest. Considering that he built the room themes from the perspective of 'what kind of message would I like to send my lady-friend tonight?' and that most of his companions consisted of blonde bimbos in bikinis, Stark thanked his lucky star that he had at least one formal and austere-looking room. Thank god he had designed that room when he had wanted to impress—okay, okay, _fuck_—that one senator's wife years ago (which never panned out, by the way, she was a wily old fox and played him like a fiddle).

He dumped the duffel bag on the floor and scanned the room one last time. "Jarvis?" he called out to get his artificial intelligence butler program's attention, knowing Jarvis inhabited every room through the surveillance system but could only concentrate on fifty-three of the ninety-three stories at any time. As Jarvis randomly switched his attention every few nanoseconds, probability favored Stark that the AI picked up part if not all of his summoning.

"Yes, sir?" the disembodied voice asked politely.

He loved being right.

"I want this room superhero-proofed in the next five hours; use the plans and contacts for Number Forty-Two if you need inspiration. Cost is not an issue, but discretion is. I know that even for a super computer this task tests the limits of what can be realistically done, but let's just say that I didn't program you to cope with failure. Five hours, and then our new guest settles in!" Stark repeated the time again to emphasize its importance, fully confident that magically in the next five hours Jarvis would complete what would take others weeks to begin.

"Very good, sir, please leave the task to me. Do you require my assistance for anything else?"

"That is all," Stark dismissed the AI to let him work his digital wonders.

If a machine's programming could not surpass the programmer's skills, then Stark understood Jarvis' extreme resourcefulness and cunning intelligence. But where the hell did the _politeness_ come from? It was an unsolvable mystery, one that eluded the multiple scans Stark did of Jarvis' programming while updating the software.

Satisfied with the room preparations, Stark headed towards the exit. On his way out he snatched the expensive glass vase from the table and threw it in a hallway trashcan. It broke with a beautiful cry, more a twinkle than a shatter, and Stark shrugged and philosophized, _Better the garbageman's hands than my head_.

Stark walked to his lab with determined steps. When he entered his work zone, he donned more than a lab coat and goggles. All his roguish qualities smoothed out into professionalism. He was no longer an alcoholic or womanizer, or rather, the influence of those traits diminished. He became the billionaire inventor Tony Stark, unstoppable owner of the unrivaled Stark Industries.

He snapped on a pair of white gloves, flexed his hands to get used to the latex feeling, and psyched himself for his next task by saying, "Step one of Spiderman's rehabilitation: reduce the runaway risk factor."

Such a banal way to justify Stark's next actions.

He hauled the unconscious body to the waiting steel examination table, checked to make sure the sedatives pumping through Peter hadn't worn off during his talk with MJ, and got to work.


End file.
